In the latest Parade magazine this Sunday, a reader asks Marilyn:
**Is it true that burning wood in a fireplace will make your home-heating energy costs go up instead of down? (Doesn’t include the cost of the wood.) **
She replied:
Yes. A fire needs air to burn, so it draws already heated air from the rest of the house. That action, in turn, pulls cold outside air into the house wherever it has leaks. Some of the warmth from a fire radiates into the room, but most of the heat goes up the chimney. She further said, opening up a window nearest the fireplace will channel outdoor air to the fireplace, and close all doors that lead into the room.
I can understand that it would probably use more energy by burning wood since most of the heat goes up the flue. And I suppose she is right about how cold air is pulled into the house wherever it leaks. But the question had to do with “home-heating energy costs” going up which didn’t even include the cost of wood.
The fireplace obviously heats up large areas of the home or the entire home if it isn’t that big. Opening up the nearest window by the fireplace seems counter productive too, even if it was just a small bit.
I put in a woodstove to my small place last winter, and seldom did I use the central heat. I opened up all doors to the house, since the place is small. Kept my place much warmer than what I had been in previous winters. Costs were almost nothing, only the price of some firewood which was just $50.00 for the entire winter. Had I used the central heat for all of my heating, it would have easily been over $100 a month in extra electricity for at least 4-5 months.
Why is she saying burning wood in your home will have energy costs going up instead of down? If the answer was worded that I use more energy by using wood, I would have understood. But the question was about costs going up or down.
My former FIL used a wood stove to heat a three bedroom room and while I considered it cold, they were comfortable with it.
There are fireplaces that are enclosed with heat tempered glass and use outside air to combust. They draw no air form the house.
Central heat is more comfortable.
Where you get your wood is a factor. Kroger sells a tiny amount for five bucks. You can do much better cutting it yourself with a chian saw. An axe saves the gas money.
I heated my house with a wood-burning stove when I was Peace Corps. Maybe it was a function of living in a shoddily-built house with no insulation, but it only kept my bedroom warm. The rest of my house was fucking freezing cold. I wouldn’t recommend it if you have another option. It’s also a pain in the ass to get the fire started, if you’re not already good at it. At first, it would take me about 2 hours to get a nice fire started, just sitting by the stove, feeding kindling until I had it going. Eventually I got it down to about 20 minutes, but it’s a hell of a lot more convenient to have modern heating. Plus, my walls got all yellowed and everything eventually smelt of burning.
A fireplace is not a wood stove. Fireplaces are very inefficient in how they radiate heat into the room and they do draw already warmed air from the farthest reaches of the house, thereby requiring the furnace to kick in and warm the replacement air that’s being drawn from outside.
Now if the fireplace is the only source of heat in the house, then clearly you’re not going to be using more oil or electricity, but you’ll still be drawing colder air into the house. So the area within the radiant range of the fireplace will be somewhat comfortable, but there will be cold drafts. (Not for nothing did our ancestors use high-backed chairs in front of the fire.)
Wood stoves are much more efficient in how they radiate heat (particularly if you supplement them with fans or blowers). So the tradeoff between cold air being brought into the house vs heat being supplied by the fire is more favorable.
fireplace inserts are as efficient as a wood stove, if it is a quality insert and it is installed properly.
you can get fireplaces and fireplace inserts that have blowers that take in room air, through channels and heat it and blow it out. fireplace inserts can also have this hooked up to air ducts to take through out the house.
important is to have a closed fire chamber and external combustion air (air to provide oxygen for the fire comes from outside the house). this causes no drafts because no air is taken from the house.
people are remembering old style open front fireplaces and the problems they caused. modern fireplaces or fireplace inserts are efficient. there is also a masonry style fireplace that provide heat for the best part of a day with one firing.
Exactly. I recall coming across an article on Russian (or masonry) stoves that mentioned that wood stoves were around ~45% efficient, while the masonry stoves could reach 80%. (This one rates masonry stoves at up to 90%.) IIRC, regular fireplaces were under 20%.
The issue, beyond fine-grained temperature control, is air circulation. We use some door fans at our place; it doesn’t take much to get an air current going between the room with the wood stove and the rest of the (1-story) house.
But even better: when my wife first moved out here, the place she rented had an Ecofan on the stove, which I’d never seen before. An absolutely fantastic solution – they use the Seebeck effect to generate power to turn the fan, which draws cool(er) air across one side of a surface to increase the temperature differential, which provides a higher level of power generation.
Oops…I just realized I was geeking out. Sorry about that…
stoves are out into a room though so are some, admittedly small proportion, fireplaces.
fireplaces are built into the home though so are the masonry stoves.
the masonry stoves are extremely expensive. often engineered into a new house because of the weight and needed construction. can give heat for a day from a couple firings.
closed door, controlled external combustion air, heat circulating fireplaces and fireplace inserts have a much higher efficiency that 20%, i’ve seen 60 to 80% values
One big clarification I need to make. I opened up all inside doors, obviously not the outside ones to my home, which I’m glad everyone understood.
Some questions that was asked: I live in north Texas. My home is less than 1,000 s.f… It’s easily warmed up and toasty by using a metal woodstove with glass door that is enclosed. I also put three feet of blown insulation in the attic, probably a bit too much for my area. It was only a $400 non-cat stove from Lowes that I bought. I spent an equal amount of money on flue and kit to run it up through the roof. I’ve only used it one full winter, but my home still has the white walls, and don’t think that is going to be a problem. I am very pleased by the enclosed wood stove that is supposed to have something like a 70% + energy efficient rating of some sorts. I guess realizing that the open fireplaces and enclosed woodstoves are different animals helps understand what she is saying somewhat. I do think some of those huge fireplaces like the Russians one described which you fire up one time, and then so much heat is absorbed into it to where it will put heat back in the home for many hours after the fire is out might be another example to where it is possibly more cost efficient to still have a fireplace.
To the poster that commented on how much of a pain it is to light a fire. Yeah, I had that problem to, for the first month or so. Now it’s real easy. I don’t use newspapers or anything of the sort, they are a real pain indeed, but a good fire-starter can generally get away with that. Just use a dozen or so small splinter type pieces of wood, and then a few bigger pieces followed by one big piece of wood. To initially start the fire, I use those strike-a-match sticks from Diamond that you can get at Walmart an elsewhere. They burn for a long time, unlike newspapers. They are something like 5 or 6 inches long. You can get a box of 50 for something like $10.00, and lasts me the whole winter. But I don’t even use the whole stick, I cut them into about 3 or 4 different pieces, and light each of those with a match. That’s always been enough to get it started for me.
i did find some distinction which may be a reason for masonry stoves being called stoves.
masonry stoves or masonry heater, meaning the slow release thermal mass design (russian, finnish, swedish, tile) might be called stove or heater to distinguish itself in common usage from a decorative fireplace that is made out of brick (both fire and facade).
though the older masonry heaters may have been more stove-like in size and appearance many modern ones are built in place as you would a fireplace and use as much and more masonry material as a fireplace.
also fireplace involves seeing the fire. many modern metal stoves come with large view glass doors standard or as an option.
i used the term fireplace insert and it may not be a well known term. it is a metal wood combustion device that can fit into a surround of masonry or wood (the actual firebox portion is 18 inches away from any wood). tightly sealing glass doors, controlled flue damper, controlled external combustion air. it has as much metal and firebricks as a large metal stove.
